For Montgomery County, Md., the process of creating a Bicycle Master Plan began two years ago. Being able to visualize bike routes has been a major part of the process. As a result, maps and GIS were important tools, according to info provided by the County to Technical.ly.

To present the final recommendations to the public, the County recently issued the Bikeway React Map shows the location of the proposed routes, and provides a way for the public to give feedback, which is being collected until July 15.

This latest map follows a Bicycle Stress Map, released in April 2016. Utilizing Esri, the map took evaluation data of 3,500 miles of roads and trail compiled by planning department staff and presented it on a scale of traffic stress in an area.

“Users can toggle between stress levels to reveal the bicycling network available to them, depending on the different levels of traffic stress they can tolerate. They can determine from the map how well public facilities are connected by bike to surrounding neighborhoods and can also view videos linked to the map that explain the experience of bicycling in areas with different traffic stress conditions,” a description states.

Taking what they learned from that map, planners looked to create a network that was as low-stress as possible.